MH370 search resumes, pushes further south

David Fickling

Underwater vehicles will search for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 further south than previously expected, after analysts revised their views of the plane's last movements.

Priority regions for a deep-sea sonar search "will most likely extend south of the previous 'orange' priority area," the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said in a statement on its website. Three search vessels are preparing to start a yearlong scan of the ocean bottom for wreckage of the aircraft, which disappeared March 8 with 239 people on board.

A map of the latest MH370 search area shows the areas already scanned in yellow and the total search area in grey shade. The dark blue areas of the map indicate a depth of up to 7000 metres, while the lighter blue is up to 3500 metres deep and the green and yellow are more shallow waters. Photo: Australian Transport Safety Bureau

The search in 6.3 kilometre deep waters of the Indian Ocean off Western Australia aims to find remains of the Boeing 777-200. The only clues to the aircraft's final resting place have been data exchanges with an Inmarsat satellite, which indicated it ditching along an arc of ocean west of Perth.

"Recent refinement to the analysis has given greater certainty about when the aircraft turned south into the Indian Ocean," the Safety Bureau said on its website. The working group planning the search zones also had a better understanding of satellite ground station operations during the final flight of the Malaysia Airlines aircraft.

The revised priority search zone extends to a latitude of around 35 degrees south, according to a map published online, compared with a southern limit of about 32 degrees south in a previous map published on June 24.

The Malaysian-contracted GO Phoenix search vessel will arrive at the underwater search area on October 1, and search for about 20 days, according to the statement.

Two vessels operated by Fugro under a contract with the Australian government are also involved in the search. The Fugro Equator arrived this week and will complete a ship-based seafloor scan before starting deep-sea sonar searches towards the end of October. The Fugro Discovery will arrive in Australia on about October 2, where a crew and equipment will be mobilised.